Thoughts on Life, Love, Politics, Hypocrisy and Coming Out in Mid-Life

Wednesday, August 31, 2016

Trump’s Campaign Team Belongs To Anti-LGBT, Anti-Immigrant Hate Group

Donald Trump continues to try to dupe gays into supporting him despite the pact that he made with a veritable who's who of American Christofascists and anti-gay hate groups. Likewise, with his trip to Mexico today, he seemingly is seeking to fool those offended by his strident anti-immigrant, anti-Hispanic demagoguery. As part of this Trojan Horse effort, Trump shook up his campaign's leadership and brought in Kellyanne Conway and Stephen Bannon. Now it turns out that both Conway and Bannon
are members of the secretive Council for National Policy ("CNP").What is frightening about CPC is the many
extremists who belong to the organization and the hatred that is their stock in
trade. The Southern Poverty Law Center ("SPLC") - which tracks hate groups across the nation - has a report on CPC and Bannon and Conway's membership. Here are excerpts:

Longtime
Republican pollster Kellyanne Conway and Stephen Bannon, executive chairman of
the far-right Breitbart News operation, were named on Aug. 17 as, respectively,
the Trump campaign’s manager and its chief executive officer. The appointment
of Bannon was by far the more controversial choice, given his role at a “news”
outlet known for bashing immigrants, Muslims, women and others.

The Council for National Policy ("CNP") is an intensely secretive and shadowy group of whatThe
New York Timesonce
described as “the most powerful conservatives in the country.” It is so
tight-lipped that it tells people not to admit their membership or even name
the group. Revealing when or where the group meets, or what it discusses, is
also forbidden. The organization, which can only be joined by invitation and at
a cost of thousands of dollars, strives mightily to keep its membership rolls
secret.

The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), which publishes
Hatewatch, obtained acopythis
spring of the CNP’s 2014 membership directory, a closely held document. It
shows that Conway was a member of the CNP’s executive committee that year, and
that Bannon was a regular member. It is not known if they remain.

They include people like Michael Peroutka, a
neo-Confederate who for years was on the board of the white supremacist League
of the South; Jerome Corsi, a strident Obama “birther” and the propagandist hit
man responsible for the “Swift boating” of John Kerry;Joseph Farah, who runs the wildly conspiracist “news”
operation known as WorldNetDaily; Mat Staver, the Liberty Counsel leader who
has worked to re-criminalize gay sex; Philip Zodhaites, another anti-gay
activist who is charged with helping a self-described former lesbian who
kidnapped her daughter from her former partner and fled the country; and a
large number of other similar characters.

The CNP is not controversial so much for the
conservatives who dominate it . . . . as for the many real extremists
who are included. . . . people
who regularly defame LGBT people with utter falsehoods, describe Latino
immigrants as a dangerous group of rapists and disease-carriers, engage in the
kind of wild-eyed conspiracy theorizing for which the John Birch Society is
famous, and even suggest that certain people should be stoned to death in line
with Old Testament law.”

The revelation of Conway and Bannon’s CNP memberships comes
at a time when the Trump campaign has suffered a number of reverses and
internal problems.

[T]he SPLC concluded in its May report on the CNP: “At
a time of extreme political polarization in our society, in the middle of an
ugly presidential contest which has featured an almost unsurpassed record of
ethnic, racial and sexual insults and lies, Americans deserve to know who their
ostensible leaders are mixing with as we collectively decide our country’s
future.”

Anyone who falls for Trump's effort to pretend his has moderated his positions is, in my view, nothing less than a fool and an idiot.

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Out gay attorney in a committed relationship; formerly married and father of three wonderful children; sometime activist and political/news junkie; survived coming out in mid-life and hope to share my experiences and reflections with others.
In the career/professional realm, I am affiliated with Caplan & Associates PC where I practice in the areas of real estate, estate planning (Wills, Trusts, Advanced Medical Directives, Financial Powers of Attorney, Durable Medical Powers of Attorney); business law and commercial transactions; formation of corporations and limited liability companies and legal services to the gay, lesbian and transgender community, including birth certificate amendment.

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